Farewell To Charms
by Erica Christian
Summary: Luke Jr. and Annie find out they're not really related. And Luke Jr. comes to the realization that just maybe he doesn't really care for the obnoxious, melodramatic spawn of Heaven and Troy after all! I wrote this maybe six or seven years ago and deleted it but wanted to re-post.
1. Chapter 1

Dear friend,

It has been three weeks now since we first learned the truth from Troy regarding your parentage. And I can't stop thinking about it. Thinking about how we aren't brother and sister. Not half-cousins. Not half-brother/half-sister. It's tearing me apart inside, Annie. It's so incredibly painful I don't think I can bear it anymore.

So I won't.

I know this will sound odd to you. That day I kissed you in the hospital, that day I touched you like I'd touched no woman before…I told you how guilty I felt for loving you when we were related. But what I didn't tell you was that I was also a little excited too. What we had between us then sent bolts of electricity through every inch of my being. It was like an orgasm every day, without the sex. It set me on fire.

Ann, I'll come out and say it. It wasn't you I loved. It was the way you made me feel. I tried to recreate that feeling after we learned the truth but it was gone. Destroyed by Troy. Now when I touch you, when I kiss the lips I used to crave so much, I only taste bitter salt. I don't think I ever really wanted you, but when I thought I couldn't have you, it gave me the freedom to wish for that which could never be. I think too that it was really you who loved me, and all this time, you had me fooled into thinking it was me who loved you because you couldn't stand the thought that maybe it was all just a little too one-sided. Shame on you, Ann. But I forgive you. That is the main purpose of my letter, so please, keep this in mind as I continue. I forgive you, Annie.

And I'm writing to you to let you know I've found someone else. You know of her. Her name is Lia Jameson. My half-sister. My mother's daughter. I dare Troy to disprove that (gee, how masochistic I've become lately). And you know what? I don't care that we are blood. I know it's the real thing. I feel for Lia the way I never felt for you, even when I thought we were related. And isn't her name funny? Lia and Luke. A lot like my grandfather and your grandmother. We had it wrong all along, but perhaps we weren't far off. The clue was always there.

I went to Lia the other day (you don't know this but I visited my sister regularly growing up. I was ashamed to talk about her back then. Can you believe that?) I told her about our life-long love, yours and mine. I told her how fate had played such a vicious joke on us, making us believe that what we had was real. Our love is no more than the dime-store variety, Ann. We were naïve children, enamored with the idea of sex, but so damned scared of following through with it that we had to make someone we could never love the object of our obsession. It's a good thing we never actually had sex because it would have made me see sooner what I see now, that the chase was better than the catch. And you would have been so hurt, if we had gone that far only to reach the same conclusion I've come to know. So in some ways, fate is kind.

I told Lia all of this and I cried and she took me in her arms and she kissed me. Oh you bet I was terrified at first, afraid of my own self and my desires. I kept berating myself, saying, "Luke, don't you go through with this. You know it will come to no good." Casteel, my mind taunted. Dirty no-good incestuous Casteel. But she kept telling me it was all right, it was OK because she loved me, really loved me, and I believed her; she was so persuasive. Her hands were even more convincing. You know what I mean, Ann. You're not dumb. And there, on the floor in the living room, in front of her fireplace, I experienced sex for the first time, and it was everything people say it should be, even if it was with my sister. But hey, who are you to judge, right? If anyone should understand, it would be you.

With this in mind, I can't imagine ever living a happy life with you, my precious innocent Annie, my sister who's not really my sister. My childhood love who's really still a child. My Annie who's no more than a friend to me. A really good friend. That's all.

You need someone who can take you to the heights you deserve; someone you can share your first time with. I'm too experienced for you now. I've moved beyond little kisses and childish games. Annie, step away from that youthful world too. Enter into the arms of the man you were born to be with. That man was never me. I only hope you can find a love as beautiful as the one I have with my sister. I was ashamed of her before but I now call her my older sister with pride. That's what love can do. And maybe, one day, you will know this happiness I feel as your own.  
>I wish you the best, innocent child.<p>

I'd like to tell you to keep in touch, Ann. I'd like to end this letter on a cordial note. I wish I could say that I'd like it if you could look at me and still see some compassion there, some flickering of our old love, even just the smallest flame burning.

But I can't. It's all a lie. I promised you once that I would never lie to you. And I won't now.

Don't come after me. Please. Don't write me. Don't call me. Let's make a clean break.

I'm going to go now, Ann. Don't even bother asking me where it is I plan to go. I haven't thought it all through yet. But I will go there with Lia. We can't marry, of course, not ever, but we'll be together. We'll have many more nights like the one I just described to you. And the sex will only get better.

Always know though, those times in your arms, when you were my sister, and I was still your brother, were some of the happiest in my life. I wish only to find that feeling again, and I know I will never find it with you.

Goodbye, my old love. Hello, bright future. The sun does, sometimes, come out tomorrow.

Luke Toby Casteel

Luke,  
>You are a bastard. I'm glad you're not my brother.<br>Ann


	2. Oh Luke, no!

Annie couldn't stop thinking about Luke. She'd written the letter where she'd called him a bastard, but maybe she didn't really mean it. Maybe she was being overly dramatic and unfair.

He was still Luke, the boy she'd loved from afar ever since she was a small child sitting on her mother's lap.

_Oh Mommy. Oh Daddy. Why does it still hurt so much to think of you_?

She wanted to weep. Weep for her lost parents, weep for her ruined legs which looked so horrible and ugly, weep for Tony's perversion and the desperate obsession an old man harbored for a young girl (may he rest in peace, the poor man). And then she had to weep for poor disillusioned Drake who'd been taken in by all of Tony's evil machinations. And of course her dear beloved Luke, so handsome and smart. Her prince charming.

What was Luke doing right now?

She put aside a blank sheet of paper on which she'd been just about to write out a fresh note, thinking she'd go and talk to him, face to face, instead.

Annie trudged across town to her Aunt Fanny's place, hoping that Luke would be there at this hour, sulking in his room, waiting for her. But when she knocked on the door and Fanny soon answered with an "Ay", she learned this was not the case.

Oh Luke is gone! _No_! She felt her knees start to go, remembering that she was still crippled, and fainted right there on the door stoop.

She awoke in a white room. She could hear voices at her side but she could not make them out. They sounded familiar though.

She didn't know where she was but she remembered what had happened just before she'd blacked out.

It's all true. She began to whimper. It's all so horribly true. _No Luke No!_

"I knew this would happen from the very start," a familiar man voice roared. "What did I always tell you? When you let these things go unnoticed…There are none so blind…" he began to say.

"Oh Drake, Drake, you are too hard on me. What was I supposed to do, lil brother? I had no idea this was all going on."

"You know nothing, dear sister. Nothing. You never have. And you're a slut!"

"Oh Drake. Oh Drake."

Annie heard a door slam. Then she felt a sweaty hand on her arm. She slowly opened her eyes.

"Annie my dur," said Fanny. She stroked her niece's feverish forehead. "Poor Annie. You had quite the tumble there, yes you did. But you're awake now and it's all gonna be fine, jus' fine."

"Oh Fanny," she cried. "Luke's gone for good, isn't he?"

Fanny had a sad look on her face. "He up and went to live with that ole sis of his. I knew it would happen one day. She was pretty. Just too durn pretty, that little dotter of mine."

"But she's his sister," Annie cried. "His swear to goodness, whole half-blooded sister."

"Now now, chile, let's not go getting dramatic here. I seem to remember a lil ole girl who was quite taken with her half brother/half cousin. Why it wasn't so long ago…"

"But Luke's not my brother, nor my cousin," she insisted. "You know all that. Heaven wasn't a Casteel. I'm not a Stonewall. Tony raped Leigh, begetting my mother, who fell in love with her uncle and, while married to my father, had sex with her uncle Troy and begot me. It was all some horrible misunderstanding."

Fanny gave a confused smile. "Whaz that? Oh Annie, dur, you talk too fast and intelligent for me."

"Troy's my father!" she shouted. "Don't you see?" The force of her words nearly knocked her unconscious again. Oh, their lives were so horrible and complicated. It was like being caught up in a whirlwind that would never stop, shaking them to the very core.

"That's right, you told me all that before, dur Annie." She patted her head. "Close your eyes and sleep now, chile. It'll all be betta when you wake."

"But I just woke up right now and it's not better!" she cried. She began to sob.

"Aw Annie, rest, chile. Rest. Luke will see how wrong his love for Darcy is and you two will be happy again. Just you wait."

"It's Lia." Annie's eyes fluttered shut. "Her name's Lia now. Reverend Wise thought the name Darcy sounded too sinful." Her eyes snapped open. "Wait a minute. Wait just a minute here. Luke told me you used to visit Lia all the time when he was a child. But you didn't even know her name was Lia!"

_Oh my! Oh my!_ Wheels were spinning in Annie's head. Luke had lied to her.

And Fanny confirmed it with a "Why I haven't seen my precious dotter since Heaven refused to help me get her back. Harumph!"

"Then that means…"

It was too horrible to even contemplate.


	3. Daddy Powers

"I think something's wrong with Luke," Annie told Drake. "I think he's lying to me."  
>"Wouldn't surprise me one bit," he said. "I told you he's nothing but a pervert. He and my sister. " He placed his hand on Annie's shoulder. "If you want my opinion, forget about him. Let him have Lia, the two of them deserve each other."<br>"You're being a little hard on him, don't you think?"  
>A dark cloud crossed over Drake's face and then disappeared. He was back to his frequently chipper, dapper self. "Come with me, Annie. You ought not be walking around by yourself. You're still very fragile. Let's get you back to bed."<br>Oh my, she thought. Now Drake's hiding something from me too.  
>Annie had nowhere else to go. Fanny had revealed Luke's lies for what they were, but other than that, she didn't seem to have anything more to say on the matter. Drake was being so damned secretive. Annie wanted to talk to Luke. She wanted him to come out and admit the truth once and for all, that he was keeping something from her. But he had no idea where Luke was because he didn't know where Lia lived. Annie would have asked Fanny but Fanny was trying to protect her from something, she knew not what. So she decided that she would go to Troy.<br>Troy was sitting in a chair in his little cottage in the maze, working on a very complex toy. It looked like a half monkey, half soldier. Tony had been dead for three months and yet still Troy worked on those toys as if they were his precious children, always giving them extra love and care. Annie didn't know what he did with them now, now that the head of Tatterton Toys had met his demise.  
>"Troy!" Annie cried, bursting through the door without knocking. He dropped the monkeysoldier in his lap and looked up.  
>"My precious Annie," he said with a smile and held out his arms. She ran to him, as best she could on her peg leg. They threw their limbs around the other and held on tight, as if for dear life.<br>"Oh Daddy, I've much to talk to you about."  
>He smoothed back her luxurious brown strands and looked soulfully into her cornflower blue eyes. "My darling, we've got eighteen years worth of memories to catch up on."<br>"Oh yes, Daddy, yes. But first…" She sat down on his lap, picking up the toy and placing it carefully on the floor by his feet. "Daddy, I'm ever so worried about Luke. I think something's up with him." She burst into hot, sticky tears. "Oh Daddy, I'd talk to  
>Mommy but she's died. I thought Luke loved me. He lied. And oh how I cried…"<br>"Dear sweet Annie," Troy said, pressing his lips against her forehead. "I know you're upset. There's no need to write a poem about it."  
>She giggled and pushed her nose against his shoulder. "Oh Daddy, I know. That's what you do." She giggled some more.<br>He stroked her back.  
>"Daddy?"<br>"Yes, my kitten?"  
>"Help me with Luke. Oh please, please. Tell me what ails him. Use your special Daddy powers, those powers the townspeople shunned you for possessing. Oh, I know that's why you're a hermit, why you pretended to die. I know they drove you out of town. I know what you must have gone through, it couldn't all have been about the depression and the incest with my mother. I know it was the powers, Daddy. I know you're so ashamed. And Daddy Troy, I would be ashamed too. But Daddy? Your daughter needs help. It's time you took out that magical wisdom and…"<br>He sucked in a deep breath. "I don't know, Annie. It's too painful."  
>She stroked his chest. "I know. But Daddy, I need your help ever so much."<br>He nodded. "All right. For you…"  
>He closed his eyes tight and let his mind go blank.<br>He saw lots of things. Things that scared him. Things that were too ugly to ever speak aloud. He saw men naked together, their bodies entwined, but it wasn't that. After all, he was a little gay, he'd admitted that to himself years before. That kind of thing did not bother him. It was something else. Something buried deep in his psyche. Something so horrible he couldn't stand to even think it. He pushed Annie off his lap, covering his face with his hands.  
>"No," he gasped. "No. Get out of here. Get out. Now!"<br>"Daddy," Annie sobbed.  
>"Get out!"<br>"But Luke, Daddy. Luke. Oh no, Daddy, what did you see? WHAT DID YOU SEE?"  
>He started breathing heavily. "Annie, I don't know how to tell you this…"<br>"Tell me, tell me…" She collapsed in front of his feet and seized his sweaty, slippery hands in hers. "Get it off your chest now. Don't carry it around on your shoulders. We'll get through this together."  
>His breathing started to slow. "Oh, that. It's nothing, dear sweetheart." He patted her hand. "I get panic attacks sometimes. It all comes with the depression I'm afraid." He gave her a meaningful look. "You've got to keep an eye out for that because you've got my genes too, Annie."<br>She patted his hand back. "Well, you're OK now. That's good."  
>"Yes. Yes. I'm fine. Anyway, you wanted to know about Luke, right?"<br>She nodded.  
>"Well, I'm afraid there's not much to say. I didn't see all that much. Except that…well, he's been screwing around with his uncle Drake."<br>Annie gasped loudly.


End file.
